Saul ‘Canelo’ Álvarez is fresh off an unsuccessful jump up weight divisions, but that doesn’t seem to have put him off challenging the current heavyweight champion of the world.
Canelo is four-weight world champion from light middleweight to light heavyweight. He’s the first man in history to unify all of the belts in the super middleweight division, and is a true legacy fighter in terms of the decisions he makes.
Still, would a jump up to the highest division be too far for the fighter who started off his career weighing just 139lb? Current heavyweight champion, Oleksandr Usyk, decided to test that by recently suggesting a fight with Canelo. The Mexican responded via Bet365.
“Everyone would like to fight me, it’s not weird, Usyk is a great fighter, he’s been on cruise, he’s gone all the way up. I am a fighter who likes challenges, he likes to feel in danger in the ring, it is what gives adrenaline.”
Whilst not specifically saying yes to the Ukrainian’s call out, it’s hard to imagine Canelo turning it down. The Mexican superstar has made a career of taking on tough challenges, and this one in particular may be close to a win-win situation – other than potential injury of course.
Usyk set out the challenge in a recent interview where he mapped out what the rest of his career might look like. Within those plans, after an undisputed fight with Tyson Fury and a showdown with hard-hitting Deontay Wilder, the undefeated Ukrainian expressed interest in what he called ‘a freak fight’ that was purely for financial gain.
He pointed to his home country as the location and picked Álvarez as the opponent, seemingly aware of some of the talk about a potential fight between the two.
Now that Canelo has floated acceptance, all Usyk needs to take care of is the small matter of becoming undisputed in a second weight-division within a total of 21 fights and then the two men can discuss their spectacle.